You know how sometimes you get a bit ahead of yourself and decide that you’re going to make things without a set recipe? This is one of those recipes. I needed to make something for a birthday party Mr. Bean and I went to yesterday, but I was unsure of what to make. This month’s Go Ahead Honey It’s Gluten Free hosted by A Gluten Free Day has the theme of “Garden Tea Party,” so I used that as my starting point. I asked Mr. Bean what I haven’t made in a while and he said flan or tarts with flan in them. Since I’ve been on a bit of a rawkick, I couldn’t decide whether or not I wanted to make them raw or not, so I did both. Over achiever much?

Since I didn’t use a pre-set recipe, I want to share who I received my inspiration from (Other than my new Raw cookbook.)

Oh man, were these an adventure. First, I learned why when recipes call for a vitamix, using a magic bullet doesn’t cut it (especially since overheats after about 10 seconds.) Secondly, I learned that you shouldn’t stick cans of coconut milk in the freezer as both the cream and clear liquid freeze, which means that the frozen chunks that you think are cream aren’t, so it didn’t whip up the way it was supposed to. Duh. Now that we established that, these wouldn’t have nearly been as time consuming had I not done those two things, so please do not be discouraged! Everything is fairly straight forward if you have the correct equipment and techniques. I’m not saying that this is impossible with a magic bullet, but it will save you so much time, frustration and agony!

Thankfully, these turned out very well, so it made it worth the effort. I made two different crusts and two different fillings. It’s hard to say which combination was my favourite, but it’s probably the raw crust with the raw coconut filling. Feel free to use whatever kind of berries you want!

Note: I did use one fresh coconut for this recipe. I cracked it open using the first set of instructions here, cut out the meat by cutting triangles and prying it out and used a vegetable peeler to remove the remaining husk.

Thanks! It’s actually quite easy: A coconut breaks fairly easily into two hemispheres if you do it right – it’s perpendicular to line that goes from between the holes to the other side of the coconut. If you hold the coconut in one hand, and use the blunt end of a large knife to whack along it’s “equator” while rotating it, after a few times it just cracks open! No worry about loss of limbs needed! I think it works better the younger the coconut is.

The first time I made icing with coconut cream from a can I got impatient and decided to freeze it too….so you are not alone 🙂 Ironically, my husband asked me to make the strawberry tart tonight for dessert and no, I’d rather make some kind of raw carrot/ cheesecake recipe…inspired by the one you posted for April in the Raw 🙂